Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Exposure to Bioaerosols is related to a grand range of sanitation’s effects including intense poisoning effects, allergy and cancer. This study has done to determine the type and concentration Bioaerosols in the air of one of the industrial live stocks slaughterhouse in Shiraz.

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Material and Method: A total of 112 air samples from different parts of industrial live stocks slaughterhouse are collected in this cross-sectional study. According to the NIOSH method, Bioaerosols sampling was done in blood agar medium and dextro agar and by Anderson one-stage sampler with flow rate of 28.3 Lit/min, sampling duration of 10 minutes and concentration measured in CFU/m3.

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Result: According to the result, the most pollution is in blood cook place (3281.44 CFU/m3) and the least pollution exists in meat delivery place (99.1 CFU/m3 ). Also the result of the study showed that Bioaerosols concentration in industrial live stocks slaughterhouse is 28 times more than its concentration in reference site. Which is 5 km from slaughterhouse and 5 species of fungi were observe which aspergillus niger and penicillium were dominat.

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Conclusion: Bioaerosols concentration in live stocks industrial slaughterhouse is higher than the threshold limit and suggested range. Therefore, it is essential to take measures, such as improving the process and technical-engineering interventions including the use of suitable ventilation systems and also management personal monitoring measures.

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Introduction: Mercury is one of the toxic metals that damages the nervous system and kidneys. Therefore, monitoring of mercury vapors in the environments is essential.

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Material and Method: A new adsorbent was made from silver nanoparticles on a bed of quartz. The nano-adsorbent was capable for sampling of the trace amounts of mercury vapor from air. In this study, the required mercury vapor was generate by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry and the necessary analysis was performed by cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry.

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Results: Mercury vapors in the Stationary phase, were concentrated as much as 2300 times (Atomic absorption detection limit was 1.15 microgram per liter of air). Thus by this stationary phase, the trace amounts of mercury vapors can be detected up to 0.5 nano gram per liter of air. The detected value of the presented method is 200 times lower than the occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) standards for mercury vapors. Heater accessory at the temperature of 245 °C was used for thermal desorption of mercury from nano silver adsorbent. Optimal time of desorption was obtained 150 seconds and the Repeatability of the method was 58 times. The mercury vapors absorbed on nano silver adsorbent could be maintained at 80 days at the room temperature (25 °C).

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Conclusion: The presented adsorbent is very useful for sampling of the trace amounts of mercury vapors from air. Moreover, it can be regenerated easily is suitable or sampling at 25 to 70 °C. Due to oxidation of silver and reduction in uptake of nanoparticles, oven temperature of 245 °C is used for the recovery of metallic silver. Low amount of adsorbent, high absorbency, high repeatability for sampling, low cost and high accuracy are of the advantages of the presented method.

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Introduction: Mercury, in different form can induce adverse effects on various organs especially central nervous system. The aim of this study was to determine concentration of mercury in inhalation and urine of the exposed worker and to investigate the prevalence of probable neurobehavioral disorders.
 

Material and Method: The present case-control study was conducted among workers of a unit in a petroleum industry. The study population consisted of 52 workers as case and 63 workers as control groups. The mercury concentration in air and urine was measured according to NIOSH 6009 standard and using the cold vapor atomic absorption spectrophotometer (CV-AAS). Demographic data and neurobehavioral disorders were collected using a self-reported questionnaire. Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression tests and SPSS v24 were used to analyze the data.
 

Result:  Air concentration of mercury was 0.062 ± 0.0014 mg/m3  which was higher than the recommended threshold by NIOSH and ACGIH. In addition, there was a significant difference between urinary concentration of mercury in the case (37.73 ± 13.01 µg/g cratinine) and control (5.93 ± 4.76 µg/g cratinine) groups (p=0.03 6). Based on the multivariate logistic regression model, significant relationships were found between memory loss, sleep disturbance, and urine mercurial concentrations and, between memory loss, moody, muscle weakness and air mercurial concentration.
 

Conclusion: The values of Hg in blood and urine workers who worked in investigated unit were significantly higher than recommended threshold values. In addition, the Hg concentration in urine was related to some of neurobehavioral disorders.

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Introduction: VOCs are harmful air pollutants that must be detected, monitored and eliminated. Adsorber tubes are standard tools for this task, specifically activated carbon tubes with high adsorption and selectivity. This research aims to compare the structural and functional characteristics of domestically produced activated carbon tubes with the conventional commercial ones for sampling toluene, a volatile organic compound.
Material and Methods: The characteristics of each adsorbent, such as structure, morphology, porosity, and element composition, were examined by SEM photography, BET testing, and EDAX analysis. The central composite design (CCD) method was employed to investigate the adsorption properties of the adsorbents. The input concentration and readsorption time of the samples were the variables considered in this study. Additionally, a field phase of personal air sampling was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of adsorbent tubes.
Results: SEM and BET analyses indicated that the porous structure of domestic activated carbon was comparable to the model produced by SKC. EDAX analysis detected a minor impurity (1%) in the domestic activated carbon adsorbent. The adsorption performance was significantly influenced by the variations in readsorption time and pollutant input concentration. The accuracy and precision of the performance of the domestic adsorbent tube were obtained as 90.77% and 91.76%. The field phase results demonstrated that the amount of pollutant adsorbed in the SKC-activated charcoal adsorber did not differ significantly during 0 to 30 days. However, the domestic adsorber showed a significant difference in the same period. The overall performance of the two adsorbers did not exhibit a significant difference between 0 and 30 days.
Conclusion: Despite minor structural differences, the adsorption efficiency of toluene by domestic adsorbent tubes in sampling high concentrations is very similar to its commercial type. However, it is not recommended for use in low-concentration environments (10 ppm and less).